If you decide to get USB capabilities, that also allows you to use a USB stick. A USB stick offers the same capabilities as a card. In other words, it is portable ... you can copy designs onto it, erase them, transfer them to your machine ... everything a card can do. I have my computer hooked up to my Janome 11000 and my software (installed on my computer) allows me to transfer my designs from the computer directly to my sewing machine and vice versa using a USB cord. I usually only use my USB sticks as backup storage for my designs, but they can be used to download designs from the internet and put them into your sewing machine. My machine has card reading and CD Rom capabilities, but I've never used either.